


Hard Lessons

by Beophron



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Slice of Life, Sort Of, i don’t know if you can consider a sci fi fic slice of life’s but
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beophron/pseuds/Beophron
Summary: CH 1. Anakin wakes up in a strange place, confused and disoriented.CH 2. Anakin teaches Ashoka some things about dueling.CH 3. Ahsoka changes. Anakin wasn't expecting it.An Anthology of ficlets taking place during the Clone Wars.





	1. Blindsided

It was the mother of all headaches that woke Anakin up. Right away something didn’t seem right. He was sitting upright in a chair and didn’t remember going to sleep. He cracked open his eyes trying to see where he was but the room was too dark to make out anything at all. When he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes something on his face caught his attention. His fingers traced the edges of the thing- fabric covering his eyes. This wasn’t a dark room at all, he was blindfolded. 

Great, he must have been kidnapped. Again. At least the genius who managed to catch him this time were too dull to tie his hands up. Just as he started to pull the blindfold away from his eyes he was interrupted. 

"Master, don't." Small hands gently pulled his away from his face. He jumped slightly, not realizing anyone was in the room with him. It wasn’t hard to figure out who it was, and cursed himself for letting himself be spooked by her. But something was off. Ashoka sounded like she was underwater, distant, echoing, and muted. He tried to look up at where he knew his Padawan was standing. "What happened?" 

"Flash detonator. Point Blank." 

That jogged the memory. He'd been sneaking through a vent trying to flank a squad of super battle droids. Somehow he had lost his element of surprise and a detonator was tossed into the vent. He remembered seeing the explosive rolling toward him, and the blinding flash of light that came with it. That explained the bandages. Flash detonators weren't lethal, nor were their effects permanent, but they would blind their victims for a few hours. 

"You're going to be light sensitive for a few days. We didn't want you to damage your eyes."

She released his hand and vanished somewhere to his left. He reclined back in his chair in with a resigned sigh. Judging by the calmness in her voice and the fact that neither of them seemed to be restrained, Anakin figured he wasn’t actually kidnapped. 

He closed his eyes and focused on using the Force to orient himself to his surroundings. He could feel the vibrations of a ships engine under his feet, and Ashoka just next to him in the pilot’s seat. But it was soft, and blurry around the edges, one sense bleeding into the other like watercolors clouding his mind. The sensation was not unlike when he was a Padawan, still learning how to focus and differentiate between senses. 

Flash detonators were designed to mute a being's senses. Whether they were a species who relied on their eyesight, hearing, or smell, the grenade was indiscriminate and targeted all of them at once. So it was no surprised that it messed with his ability to listen to the Force. 

"Master Kenobi is taking a nap in the back." She answered before he could ask. Usually, Anakin could sense his master's location on a ship with ease, but his force sense didn't want to extend much further than the cockpit. 

"You should sleep. We're nowhere near Coruscant, yet." 

He was exhausted. A part of him wanted to go into the back and sleep himself, but the grenade left him disoriented and he was sure that if he tried to stand, he wouldn't make it three steps without falling over. Even just sitting here, slumped in his seat, he felt like he was listing to one side, unable to properly orient himself in space. 

He tried to do as she suggested and go back to sleep, but couldn’t relax with the pounding behind his eyes. And the whole sensory deprivation thing was more distracting than it was relaxing. It was unnerving to be so unattune to his surroundings. Anakin couldn’t see, could barely hear, and was cut off from the force, he only had the loosest idea of where he was, and not the faintest of what time it was. 

"Are you alright Master?" He felt her prod him carefully in the Force. In his current cloud, he could shield himself from her. Not that he needed or even cared to. She didn't pry, nor had she ever really tried to.

Fearlessly and with little regard for her own safety, Ahsoka barreled headfirst into conflict. Obi Wan insisted she learned it from Anakin, but he was sure she was like that long before he ever met her. How would concede however, that he didn’t do much to discourage the behavior. Yet despite it all, Ahsoka was careful never to overstep her master’s boundaries. She rarely did more than brush up against his consciousness. Anakin thought she must have learned that from Obi Wan. He had never been quite as considerate of other people’s space as a padawan, and it took him a few hard lessons to break the habit. 

Ahsoka on the other hand only ever checked in.

In the heat of a battle, when one of them had leaped wildly into harm’s way, when their voices were hoarse with yelling, and ears ringing from the bombs exploding around them, he would feel her underneath it all reaching out for him. Just to make sure he was still there. To make sure he was okay, to let him know she was handling herself.

He would admit that despite the motions innocence it was an impressive use of the force, to in a moment of such extreme stress to be so gentle. Even when she was over her head and in need of backup, her callouts here little more than a tap on the shoulder, a calm, mild, reminder that she was there. 

An excellent sign of her progress towards becoming a fully realized Jedi, Obi Wan would say. Except, Anakin would come to realize that Obi Wan was unaware she was doing it, when he had brought it up after the fact. There was a trust in that gesture that Anakin had never had with his Master. It wasn’t that Anakin trusted Obi-Wan any less than she trusted him, but rather that Anakin wasn’t considerate of the fact that Obi-Wan might worry about him. 

He let her check in on him. Normally he would have been annoyed with her concern. Not because it was misplaced, but because he was, to some degree embarrassed, to let his Padawan take care of him. It was after all his job to protect her. But his head swam, and he didn’t feel fully conscious, and without his eyesight or full access to the Force, Anakin didn’t care how he might look to her. 

“Yeah Snips, I’m fine. Still just a little disoriented. It will pass.” 

Anakin could hear her scoff. “You did hit your head pretty hard.” 

Hit his head? He frowned, he didn’t remember hitting his head. She must have picked up on his confusion because she went on, a hint of amusement in her voice. 

“You got buttstroked. After you fell out of the vent. It was kind of funny until you didn’t get up and I realized you probably had a concussion.” 

He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. That was a pretty solid cause for the migraine Anakin was feeling right now. 

“You don’t actually have a concussion though, so you can be happy about that. I’m not sure if its a human thing or a Skywalker thing that makes your head so ridiculously hard.” 

“Hilarious. So explain this one to me, Snips. If I’m the one with the head injury, why am I in the co-pilot’s seat and Obi-Wan is sleeping in the back?” When she doesn’t respond right away, warily Anakin tried to look over at her, forgetting for a moment about the bandages over his eyes. 

“Ahsoka? Is he hurt?” In his current state he couldn’t see or sense anything from her. Nothing to indicate his immediate assumption was wrong. Despite his general disorientation he fumbled clumsily with his seatbelt, before managing to free himself and standing up.

“No, Master, wait.” Before he could get anywhere he felt Ahsoka take his wrist. “Master Kenobi is fine we just- he didn’t want you to be left unattended, in case you woke up.” 

He caught just a hint of embarrassment in his Padawan’s voice, and had a feeling he was missing something. But his head hurt, and he trusted her, so Anakin conceded and flopped back into his seat. He tried not to think too hard about her flying the ship. He couldn’t stand the way his Padawan flew. 

“Obi-Wan was convinced you would quote ‘panic when you woke up, rip off the bandages, and permanently blind yourself’.” She made sure to poorly imitate his accent as she said it. 

“Good to know he still doesn’t have any faith in me.” 

“Well the only thing he got wrong was the panicking part.” 

He huffed and threw a rude gesture in her general direction. He thinks he might have heard her chuckle, but with everything so muffled it was hard to be sure. 

“Seriously, you should try to sleep.” 

“No thanks. Gotta keep an eye on my Padawan.” 

“...that’s a joke right?” 

“Not at all. Even after a flash detonator to the face I am still a better pilot than you.” 

“You’re impossible.” 

“Mmmhm.”


	2. Duel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated making this chapter it's own fic. But Alas it is just a stand alone scene.

“Ahsoka, who taught you that?” 

She looked up from where she was going through her lightsaber forms. She hadn’t told Anakin she would be practicing today so his appearance was unexpected but not really all that surprising. Like her Master, she hated meditating and spent more of her time going through combat drills in the dojo than in her quarters. 

He had caught her going through her rear guards. One of the benefits of using the reverse grip, was its unique ability to be used to defend one’s back. Ahsoka wasn’t entirely sure what he was referring to, but considering he had mentioned in the past that he did not know how to use her grip, she had a decent guess. The fact of the matter was, even amongst the thousands of Jedi at the temple, Ahsoka was one of a very small handful of those who utilized the form. Finding someone to teach her to use it would have been nearly impossible.

Her mouth drew into a thin line, and when she did not respond he was familiar enough with Padawan speak to know that meant, ‘I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.’ The truth was that Ahsoka had been teaching herself the technique with the help of holobooks from the archive. That was how most Jedi picked up other styles of combat beyond the basic Shien form. While not forbidden, Jedi were heavily encouraged to wait until they had made Knight before experimenting on their own. Especially, with styles as uncommon as a duel wield reverse grip. 

He studied her for a moment, scratching his chin that way Obi-Wan always did when he was thinking.

Without warning he ignited his own lightsaber and came at her with a powerful over head chop. It was slow, and Ahsoka was able to easily roll away. 

“You’ve picked a dangerous fighting style, my padawan.” She tried to rebuke him but was too preoccupied jumping out of the way of his blade as he continued to come after her. She ignited her own lightsabers. So they were dueling. This was unexpected. 

“Do you know why we don’t teach that technique to younglings?” 

“Yes Master, it’s because-” She managed to catch a strike that would have cut her in half if she missed the parry. She held it there for a brief moment, struggling against power behind the blow. Anakin was a strong duelist. It was not necessary for him to use the powerful slices distinctive to his style. A tap with a lightsaber could be just as devastating as a chop with all his muscle behind it. Yet there was force behind every move made, and she could feel it when pushing against his blade, trying to keep him from overpowering her guard. Anakin’s style was powerful and devastating, and nearly every fight of his ended with his opponent being torn asunder. 

“Because you must be faster than every opponent you meet, or you will die.” He warned ominously. To punctuate the point, Anakin whipped his blade around his head, breaking her parry and coming at her from the opposite side. The switch was lightning quick and again she caught it, this time with her shoto. 

“The dual wield mitigates that risk, Master.” Ashoka tried to hide her smile. Whatever lesson Anakin was trying to teach her wasn’t going as planned, not when she was countering him so easily. 

“Does it? What happens then, when you only have one?” With a flick of his wrist her shoto exploded, cut cleanly in two.

“Blast- Master!” It was a miracle he didn’t take off her hand with it. Building the smaller saber had been a two week long test in patience and now her shoto was a completely useless, smoldering hunk of metal. It didn’t seem to matter much to Anakin, because he was already rearing back and preparing for another swing to the same side. She dropped, letting the blade sweep over her head harmlessly. 

“That wasn’t fighting that was running.” He chided, unimpressed with the dodge. ”Come now Ahsoka prove to me you’re more than a youngling playing with something you can’t handle.” 

She bristled, Anakin never spoke to her that way. It was Obi-Wan that chided her, and told her when she was doing something wrong. Obi-Wan made her defend her decisions and prove herself. Anakin trusted her. He trusted she knew what she was doing, and trusted her to learn from her mistakes. Anakin would have said ‘if you’re going to do that, I expect you to know how to do it’ whereas Obi-Wan would say ‘if you’re going to do that, you must prove you know what you’re doing.’ She didn’t much care for Obi-Wan’s teaching style. 

She countered with an upward, cross body slash, a personal favorite of hers. The move was devistating when used against droids, for nearly all of them were too stupid and slow to react. The wide arc of her blade could easily cut through three battle droids in one motion. Anakin, on the other hand, needed only to take a step back to be out of its range. 

She should have held her saber in front of her a moment longer. As soon as she dropped it, Anakin was on her again. Using his superior height to his advantage, he kicked her square in the chest and sent her rolling head over heels. 

Great. He had her on the ground, never a good position to be in during a fight. She didn’t have time to roll away before she had to parry yet another overhead chop aimed at her head. Kriff he was strong. She could tell her Master was intentionally coming at her with all his strength. It took everything she had to maintain her guard and prevent him from pushing her own blade into her face. 

His technique was even simpler than usual. He was coming at her with basic chops and slices, easy to read, yet lightning fast in execution. Anakin usually favored the basics, his skill coming from impeccable timing and form. Because of this Master Yoda on several occasions had tried to convince Anakin to teach younglings, but was always refused. Despite Ahsoka’s wider arsenal of counters and feints she still rarely won spars against her Master. 

As soon as he started to let up to start a second attack she moved, kicking his legs out from under him and sending him crashing backwards. With a quick kip she was on her feet again, their positions reversed. Finally Ahsoka managed to gain the dominant position, if only for a moment. She had no time to think about it, if she was to win this spar she needed to act before he regained his momentum. 

She came down at him a stab, bracing with two hands so he couldn’t knock it away, and forcing him to roll or be impaled. Now it was her turn to be fast and press the attack. If she let him get back up, there was no way she was winning this fight. Not with how aggressively he was sparring. He was on his back when she jumped on top of him. She did not have the size advantage to being able to over power him, but with her knees in his armpits, there was no way for him to get enough leverage to buck her, and with her legs in the way he wouldn’t be able to reach her with his lightsaber. 

Anakin’s eyes went wide for a moment when she brought her blade inches from his face, so close he could feel the heat of it. 

“Tap out.” He grinned up at her, patting her lap. With a flash her lightsaber was switched off, ending the match. She sighed in relief, rudely dropping her weight onto Anakin’s chest eliciting a choked squawk from her Master.

“Get off, you cheeky little f-” He shoved her off him, now that they were no longer sparring, she rolled off him effortlessly. Ahsoka stood first offering him her hand, and hauling him to his feet. 

“Not bad little one. But you still need to work on your speed.” 

“I beat you didn’t I?” 

“Would you have beaten me if I was going all out?” 

She crossed her arms and pouted at him. No. They both knew full well there was no way in hell she was beating him if this was a real fight. He laughed and shoved playfully at her shoulder.

“You’re good at that, Ahsoka. Don’t get cocky though, if you’re going to use an unorthodox technique you can’t let your practice slip.” 

“I can’t believe you cut my shoto in half.” Leaning down to pick up the smouldering remains of her second saber, she sighed sadly. Guess that was the end of her dual wielding days. 

“The crystal is intact you’ll be able to rebuild it.” 

She scowled at him. Anakin smiled back, completely unrepentant. Fine, but she would be stealing the parts for it from his massive pile of droid clutter. Maybe even swiping the parts from one of his unused mechno-arms. That was just petty enough to be solid revenge. 

“Alright, whatever. So are you gonna tell me what profound, ancient, Jedi lesson my wizened Master was trying to teach me?” 

“I told you, Snips. To use the reverse grip a Jedi needs to have two skills. You need to be fearless, and you need to be fast. And I already know you’re fearless.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the flow of this fight was as easy to visualize for my readers as it was for me. I had a ton of fun writing this one.


	3. Jedi Robes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka changes. Anakin wasn't expecting it.

It was late morning when Anakin showed up at Obi-Wan’s door. He knocked once and walked in. Anakin knew his Master's routines well enough to know that he would not be interrupting anything, and Obi-Wan knew Anakin's well enough to know he was coming. Knocking was more a formality than anything else. 

It had become something of a tradition for Ahsoka and Obi-Wan to have tea together on off mission mornings. It was their time to talk and enjoy each other’s company without the backdrop of a warship or battlefield. Ahsoka liked the opportunity to speak freely with her Grandmaster and Obi-Wan loved having a student that actually listened to him once in a while. Sometimes they would be playing some boring card game because no matter how much Obi-Wan protested Anakin calling him old, he insisted on acting like a grandpa at every turn.

Anakin would usually arrive a bit later, letting them have their space for a few hours before wandering in. The three of them would sit, talk about nothing of weight for a while, before Anakin would collect Ahsoka for some task or training. 

When he entered, Obi-Wan was sitting at his small kitchen table, leg crossed over his knee, as he watch Ahsoka pace back and forth in front of him. Their conversation must have been intense. Ahsoka’s face was twisted into the type of scowl that meant she was thinking hard about something. Obi-wan tracked her movements her with an entertained smirk.

His Master greeted him with a small wave and an equally small nod. She caught the movement and turned around, immediately perking up when she saw Anakin. 

“Good morning, Master!” She beamed with all the enthusiasm of an excitable voorpak. 

“Hey Snips.” he gave Obi-Wan a slight bow. “Master.” 

He raised a questioning eyebrow at his Padawan. “I’m not used to you looking so respectable. What’s the occasion?”

She was wearing Jedi robes, traditional in cut and nearly identical to Obi-Wan’s in all but color. She rarely wore robes, disliking the layers of loose fitting fabric. The more conservative Masters had tried to convince her to wear them more often but she refused, always saying she felt like she would trip over them and impale herself on her own lightsaber. Honestly, Anakin could relate to the sentiment. So could Obi-Wan but he would never buck tradition outloud. They had merely gotten used to fighting in the cumbersome garments. The only time Ahsoka ever wore them was on Coruscant for formal events, and their trio usually worked hard to avoid formal events. 

“My meeting. With Master Plo. Did you forget?” Ahsoka crossed her arms, giving him an unimpressed look.

That was right. A few days ago she had asked permission to forgo training to spend the afternoon with Master Plo. He had invited her to sit in on a meeting between himself and a representative from Kamino’s cloning facilities. 

At the time he assumed the meeting was an excuse to skip out on training. Master Plo had a soft spot for Ahsoka and was a bit less serious than some of the other members of the council. He didn’t have any qualms about pretending to need Ahsoka’s help with something if she wanted to get out of doing work. 

Anakin was well aware of the trick, but Ahsoka worked hard and he didn’t mind letting her shirk responsibilities now and again. If she wanted to run off instead of trailing after him all day, he could care less. It gave him an excuse to run off with Padme or lock himself in his room to tinker. 

He was a little surprised to see that she was apparently serious about the meeting. And struck with how very seriously she was taking it. She didn’t even wear the robes for meetings with most heads of state. 

For someone who didn’t have much respect for tradition himself, Anakin found himself unexpectedly pleased with the development. The traditional robes made her look older, more mature and so much like a true Jedi. 

He quirked a brow, studying his Padawan head to toe. 

She was tall and getting taller. At the rate she seemed to be growing, Anakin suspected it wouldn’t be long before Ahsoka rivaled him in height. 

Togruta of both sexes generally stood eye-level with human males. Which, much to Padme’s dismay, and Anakin’s amusement meant most togruta females towered over their human counterparts. Ahsoka had overtaken the senator months ago. Obi-Wan was by no means a short man, but she was already close to surpassing him as well.

He had his doubts she would ever look down at him though, as Anakin was very tall by human standards. Padme had laughed when he brought it up. Beside herself with giggles at the idea, she insisted it was an inevitability that Ahsoka would outgrow him, and his refusal to admit it was just Anakin’s pride getting in the way of the obvious. After all with the inclusions of her horns, she was almost guaranteed to approach seven feet. 

He thought back to when he first met her. Had she worn Jedi robes back then, she would have been indistinguishable from the younglings, who wore them as a uniform. Now, no one would ever mistake her for one. 

The robes fit her handsomely. She must have been recently fitted for them, because they did not hang off her awkwardly in that way that was so common in Padawans, who grew too fast for the temple’s quartermasters. And though he could see far less of her skin than in her usual fashion, she looked stronger. The crisp folds of her tabard accentuated the strong shoulders she had built in the dojo. Her lightsabers must have been polished as they stood out, a mirror finish that gleamed against the dark charcoal of her robes. She was a far cry from the spindley child he met on Christophsis. 

Ahsoka was a Commander, and if this war continued to grind on, then in a few years she might be a General, and it showed. She had forgone a cloak and instead of the classic billowing sleeves, her cuffs were cut narrower so they could be tucked into gloves or bracers. She looked so similar to the young Knights who stood in front of their own clone regiments.

Ashoka hated the red tape and disingenuous nature of politics as much as he did. She had no patience for meetings or debates, and Anakin couldn’t really blame her. They were both doers not planners. But she cared about the army far more than she hated talking about the army. They all cared of course, but wondered if maybe his Padawan was more invested in this war than any of them. 

Ahsoka was a prominent Jedi Commander in the war. The prestige she held was the result of her status as a Jedi and her close work with himself and General Kenobi. But the respect from her subordinates was not unearned. 

The Clones saw her, a child who no one expected much from, not even her own Master. But she held herself to a standard that no one else did so that she wouldn’t fail them. They knew her well. They knew how she fought on the front lines with them. They knew how much she cared about them, even when it was forbidden for her to do so.

It reflected in her even now, choosing of her own volition to attend a meeting, the very type Anakin knew she despised, to discuss changes to the training regiments of new clones. So that she could ensure her people were prepared when they stepped off the gunships into chaos. 

And of course it did not escape anyone's notice that this generation's Padawans were being forged in the fires of war; an experience vastly different from those of their Masters. For as much as he and his apprentice had in common, he was aware that he couldn't relate to her experience as much as he wanted to. She would never say it, but he knew through their bond in the Force that she considered the clones her brothers. Because in a way this war was the catalyst of her inception as much as it was theirs. Even the excitement of chasing Obi-Wan across the galaxy didn't compare to the dark stain destruction and ruin spilled over her formative years. 

But as much as she looked the part, Anakin knew she did not strive to be a militant. She had far too much compassion for that. She took her assigned job seriously but he could feel though the threads of their bond that she took to heart the idea that Jedi were supposed to be peacekeepers. He knew that was why she refused to wear any armor, and why she didn’t wear the decorative clone pauldron the 501st had given her. 

In a way he thought her a better Jedi than him. Whereas Obi-wan taught him wit, skill, and fearlessness, from his Master she was learning diplomacy, humility, and self-reflection. He trusted that Ahsoka had the resolve to make it out of this war unscathed, and be able to step back into the life of a Jedi when all was said and done. There were days when he wondered if he could say the same about himself. 

He is brought out of his thoughts by the feeling of Ahsoka prodding at his mind, a questioning look on her face. He’d zoned out, forgetting that Ahsoka had asked him a question. 

“Just needed a reminder is all. Haven’t gotten zapped that many times, yet.” He smirked. 

He took his seat next to Obi-Wan who gave him a knowing smile. For a moment he thought he might have let his shields falter and let slip his thoughts to his Master. But he recanted the notion. In many ways Ahsoka was Obi-Wan’s padawan too even if that wasn't formally the case. There was no doubt Obi-Wan felt the same swelling pride seeing her this way. 

She rolled her eyes at him, totally oblivious to the silent conversation going on between her Masters. 

“Now if only we could get her to wear them in the traditional browns too.” Obi-Wan teased. 

“I’m just taking a page out of my Master’s book” She sniffed, nose in the air. “I figured we should match. And, grey is my color.” 

Anakin scoffed. He hadn’t noticed it before but she had chosen a color very similar to his own. “We’re not trying to make fashion statements, Ahsoka.” 

“Speak for yourself.” Obi-Wan muttered into his cup, and Ahsoka nearly choked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan Kenobi spent too many years mastering the dramatic robe drop to not be considered Fashion Dad

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive Criticism is greatly appreciated


End file.
